In the earliest drafts of Appendix A, the river's name was given as Zigil-nâd.[3] Considering the meaning of zigil, Edouard Kloczko has proposed that Kibil-nâla is not the name of the actual river, but only of "the reappearance of the river". He connects kibil to Adûnaickhibil, "spring".[4] This seems unlikely, as Tolkien explicitly stated: "Silverlode dwarfish [sic] Kibilnâla".[5]